Porter council approves move to BSNA VoiceCloud for town financial and utility systems

Porter's council voted to proceed with a cloud-based migration of the town's financial, payroll and utility management software to BSNA VoiceCloud, a decision the clerk-treasurer said followed extensive vendor demonstrations and comparisons with Tyler Technologies.

Clerk-Treasurer Karen told the council the incumbent system (Keystone/Boyce) is being deprecated after a corporate acquisition and staff have tested both finalists. Karen summarized benefits including cloud-hosted budgets, real-time access for department heads and employee self-service portals for pay stubs and PTO balances. "Going from the software we currently have which is on its way out the door to this cloud-based software is like going from black and white TV to full color 4K TV," Karen said, describing user experience and functionality gains.

Council members discussed cost trade-offs. Karen presented an upfront and first-year proposal figure of about $75,755 for the VoiceCloud configuration that includes timekeeping; she said the town would seek to remove an optional purchase-order module from the initial contract to lower immediate costs and revisit it after implementation. The motion to move forward included the condition that the town attorney review and approve final contract terms before signing.

Officials said BSNA offered a migration-fee discount through June 30 that reduced initial migration costs compared with another vendor. Multiple council members praised Karen's due diligence and indicated majority support for the procurement.

Next steps: attorney review of the contract, final invoice and scope confirmation, and a pre-implementation schedule for data migration and training. Council members said the town would aim for a timeline that minimizes operational disruption during transition.